Consumer Fraud
Bernstein Liebhard’s consumer practice group litigates all types of consumer protection and consumer fraud cases. Consumer protection laws exist in all fifty states and regulate the way businesses can advertise, market, and sell their products and services to consumers. Generally, these laws prohibit deceptive business acts or practices, such as:
- defective products
- bait and switch schemes (in which one product or service is offered but another is actually delivered)
- false advertising
- high-pressure sales tactics
- selling used parts in new products
- hidden charges in utility, credit card, and other bills
- the failure to honor rebates
- the use of form contracts and fine print to mislead consumers
The Firm’s participation in consumer protection class actions has brought about meaningful relief for aggrieved consumers, as well as helped to prevent unfair and abusive business practices from recurring. For example, the firm obtained:
- $173.25 million monetary recovery for thousands of New York City tenants in Roberts v. Tishman Speyer Properties, L.P. – the largest tenant settlement in United States history – in an action against landlords for illegally charging market rate rents for apartments that should have been rent stabilized under New York City’s Rent Stabilization Law.
- $30 million recovery for owners and leasees of certain Volvo automobiles.
- $4.25 million recovery for owners and leasees of certain Saab automobiles.
- Relabeling of a popular home medical testing device designed to alert a woman as to the best time to conceive to reflect the product’s limitation.
The Firm is currently serving on the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee in In re Apple Inc. Device Performance Litigation, No. 18-MD-02827-EJD, a nationwide class action related to allegedly defective models of iPhones and iPads and various iOS software patches that secretly throttled device performance to mitigate and hide the defects.
If you believe that you have been a victim of a deceptive trade practice, please contact Stephanie M. Beige .